So when I treat Finn with love and get miscellaneous items torn up in return: I try not to take it personally. Instead I sit there and hope that Karma will trip him up a little. Nothing evil and certainly nothing too drastic. Like when he goes to eat another one of my mittens: it gives him indigestion. And because Finn has such a sensitive stomach: it actually does give him indigestion. That's when I learn Karma for him, ends up being a medicine I also have to swallow. Because, right there, in front of me is the product of Karma in yellow spew on my carpet...that I have to clean. Which leads me to the conclusion that the properties of 'Karma' does not apply to dogs.
This became apparent to me over the weekend when I ended up in the hospital due to dehydration. And I was guzzling water the days before this happened, so it was appreciated, but unnecessary to have each of my co-workers tell me: "You need to drink more water". Although the rebel in me would disagree with the appreciation ("don't tell me what ta do").
After I got out of the hospital, I was feeling pretty good. The nurses pumped me with fluids and I wasn't feeling too bad. No urge to pass out, no dizziness. I took Finn out of his crate (forgetfully leaving my bedroom door open) and settled down for the rest of the night that was already gone from my hours in the hospital. Of course, I had to wonder what kind of side-effect dehydration would have on a body considering I had never had it previously. So I guess it makes sense that stupid curiosity would blister in to full-blown pain through a migraine and nausea. And because I was preoccupied with profuse amounts of suffering and I hadn't checked on Finn in less than two minutes I deserved the chaos upon which I entered when I went to my room to lay down.
On my bed was Finn who was all too happy with his accomplishments, his tail wagging with confidence and ears perked in exuberance. Just below him, was the chowed remains of my murdered mitten, it's partner condemned to a widowed life.
There really wasn't much I could do by then besides clean up the missing pieces of torn mint and black yarn. Until I noticed Finn bend down to chew on something else that was fabric: Artemis's pumpkin hat. Sure, Artemis was jumping for joy at the prospect of the torn up hat (as I reminded my son that I still had the frilly neck piece), but I was able to stop the shredding wars before it exponentially became worse.
All this led to Finn's re-crating so he could cool down for a bit.
Maybe it's just me, but I've noticed a pattern here. When I get sick or have a bad day, Finn gets some metaphysical message to behave horribly. From where: I don't know. I'm certain I don't want to know either.
(legs are actual size)xD
One way or another he tends to rip things up on days that just happen to coincide with negativity. Making it that much harder to keep my patience. And Finn requires a lot of patience.
A lot.
For example, when I tried to teach him how to "shake" inside the bathtub, rather than outside of it.
Dogs will be dogs. And I'm not opposed to him shaking his wet, little derriere all over the house, but out of respect for my parents and their furniture (which we try to take care of) I thought it'd be best to teach him to shake inside the bath tub before he's allowed to jump out.
I knew it was going to be a challenge because Finn doesn't know the word "shake" or it's meaning. That's still something he is attempting to grasp. But I didn't think the process would take almost two hours.
I could hear my parent's down the hall, in the living room, wondering why it was taking me so long to simply give Finn a bath. And I'll tell you why. For half an hour, the events went a little something like this:
When I was ready to call it quits, I let him hop out of the tub. He started to shake so I tossed him back in before he could. Then we repeated our previous endeavor for another thirty minutes. I let him hop out again and praised him when he didn't shake. Which made him want to shake and made me toss him back in before he could. Repeat steps 1, 2, 3 and so on so forth for another hour. If we're lucky he'll shake in the tub so I can praise him, let him out and he can start to learn what "shake" is. Obviously, I still have much to repeat and continue trying to teach him.
Until then, let the Patience Games begin and "May the odds be ever in your favor!"
I copied Em a bit and put her blog on my blog list over there on the right underneath the archive. Check it out she's updated! >:D
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